fearthought

English

Etymology

Blend of fear +‎ forethought. Coined by Horace Fletcher as part of New Thought Movement at the turn of the twentieth century.

Noun

fearthought (uncountable)

1. Excessive and unhealthy apprehensiveness; unnecessary fearfulness.
   • 1897, Horace Fletcher, Happiness as found in Forethought minus Fearthought (Chicago & New York: Stone), pp. 24–25:

     To assist in the analysis of fear, and in the denunciation of its expressions, I have coined the word fearthought to stand for the unprofitable element of forethought, and have defined the word 'worry' as fearthought in contradistinction to forethought. I have also defined fearthought as the self-imposed or self-permitted suggestion of inferiority, in order to place it where it really belongs, in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and therefore not respectable things.

   • 1902, William James, “Lectures 4 & 5”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience […] ‎^[1], London: Longmans, Green & Co.:

     The “misery-habit,” the “martyr-habit,” engendered by the prevalent “fearthought,” get pungent criticism from the mind-cure writers ...